Ronni Sanlo came out as a lesbian and divorced her husband in 1978 in Florida. The year before, Anita Bryant - the former Miss Oklahoma beauty pageant winner and Florida Citrus Commission spokeswoman - convinced voters to repeal a Florida county ordinance protecting gays and lesbians from discrimination. Bryant´s Save Our Children campaign created a hostile climate in the Sunshine State for gays and lesbians. As a result, Sanlo lost custody of her two children. Sanlo's story is told in the documentary "Letter To Anita," which screens September as part of the QFilm Festival.

n 1977, Anita Bryant - the former Miss Oklahoma beauty pageant winner and Florida Citrus Commission spokeswoman - convinced voters to repeal a Florida county ordinance protecting gays and lesbians from discrimination. Bryant´s Save Our Children campaign created a hostile climate in the Sunshine State for gays and lesbians. When Ronni Sanlo came out as a lesbian and divorced her husband that same year, she lost custody of her two children. Sanlo's story is told in the documentary "Letter To Anita," which screens September as part of the QFilm Festival.

long beach >> Ronni Sanlo is a survivor from Anita Bryant’s war against gay and lesbians.

Sanlo’s story is told in the documentary “Letter to Anita” that will be screened Saturday as part of the 2014 Long Beach QFilms Festival. The long-running LGBT film festival will take place Friday to Sunday at the Art Theatre of Long Beach, and the neighboring Long Beach LGBTQ Center.

Bryant’s Save Our Children campaign created a hostile climate in the Sunshine State for gays and lesbians. So when Sanlo came out as a lesbian and divorced her husband that same year, she lost custody of her two children.

But after losing custody of her children, Sanlo thrust herself into gay and lesbian rights activism, working as an HIV/AIDS epidemiologist in Florida and director of the LGBT Center at the University of Michigan. In 1995, Sanlo launched the university’s Lavender Graduation, which celebrated the lives and achievements of LGBT college students.

Sanlo also was the director of UCLA’s Lesbian Gay Bisexual Transgender Center when she retired in 2010.

Andrea Meyerson, a Culver City-based filmmaker and director of “Letter to Anita,” said Sanlo’s experiences inspired her to make the film.

“I’ve known Ronni for years. Her story was always in my mind as a possible documentary,” Meyerson said during a recent telephone interview while visiting New York City. “I was fascinated and inspired by her, especially the work she had done over the years as a street activist fighting for our rights in a time when it wasn’t accepted. It was a tough time in our community.

“Ronni’s life could have gone in many directions, but she turned to help our community. That was very inspiring,” Meyerson said.

Meyerson was aware of Bryant’s anti-gay campaign, but didn’t realize the devastating effects it had on many gay and lesbian families. Meyerson attempted to speak with Bryant about being interviewed for the film, but Bryant refused to meet with her, Meyerson said.

Shannon Minter, legal director at the National Center for Lesbian Rights, said Bryant’s campaign left a legacy of misinformation and bias against the gay and lesbian community.

“Anita Bryant mounted a public campaign to demonize gay people and portray them as sexual deviants and dangerous to children,” Minter said. “Those toxic stereotypes created a lasting legacy of misinformation and bias against gays and lesbians.

“Bryant’s campaign significantly contributed to an extremely hostile political and legal climate for gay and lesbian parents, who routinely lost custody of their children in Florida courts for decades,” he said. “That persisted until the 1990s, when Florida courts started to reverse the trend and said sexual orientation should not be relevant to child custody.”

The Bryant campaign is a dark chapter in LGBT history and one that shouldn’t be forgotten, Meyerson said.

“If we share these stories, hopefully these events won’t happen again,” Meyerson said. “Also, we can’t lose site of the community’s journey. This early work by Ronni helped us get to gay marriage being legalized.”

The title of film refers to an actual 2009 letter Sanlo wrote Bryant, saying she had forgiven Bryant for the horrible and vitriolic things she said about the gay and lesbian community.

“This film is about the letter,” Meyerson said. “It was for Ronni’s healing. It was very cathartic and a way to move on with her life.

“It took Ronni that long to forgive,” Meyerson said. “Ronni wanted the message of forgiveness to be a strong moral of this movie.”

Sanlo, 67, said writing the letter was vital for her to move on with her life.

“I had gotten to a point in my life where I needed to release the anger I carried deep within me,” said Sanlo, who wrote her experiences in her 2012 memoir “The Purple Golf Cart: The Misadventures of a Lesbian Grandma.”

“Holding on to anger keeps one embedded in the past with an inability to move into the future with love,” she said. “I needed to let go.”

Contact Phillip Zonkel at 562-714-2098.

Correction: An article in Sunday’s paper listed the wrong day for the screening of “Letter To Anita” at the QFilm Festival in Long Beach. The film screens this Saturday.

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